What hardware does Office 2010 look at when activating / reactivating?

Discussion in 'Microsoft Office' started by gabb, Nov 24, 2010.

  1. gabb

    gabb MDL Junior Member

    Sep 17, 2008
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    #1 gabb, Nov 24, 2010
    just curious on what hardware can be changed or replaced on my rig without any problems if I reinstall office or something.

    Some say "mobo", but what specificaly? BIOS? Some serial number?
    What if I add hardware in the future like a NIC, DVD or HDD?


    Thanks!
     
  2. jinhenson

    jinhenson MDL Novice

    Dec 13, 2010
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    #2 jinhenson, Dec 25, 2010
    Last edited: Dec 25, 2010
    My guess is that the hardware Office look when activating is not out of this list:

    Display Adapter
    SCSI Adapter
    IDE Adapter (effectively the motherboard)
    Network Adapter (NIC) and its MAC Address
    RAM Amount Range (i.e., 0-64mb, 64-128mb, etc.)
    Processor Type
    Processor Serial Number
    Hard Drive Device
    Hard Drive Volume Serial Number (VSN)
    CD-ROM / CD-RW / DVD-ROM

    As far as I know if Office 2010 activation works the same way as Windows Product Activation (WPA) on XP, then Office 2010 looks at all of this ID's, and the ID of each device count as a vote.
    IF (VOTE_COUNT < 7_VOTES) THEN BEGIN
    // We are on another hardware, and I will not activate.
    // I'm evil and I want a lot of money
    END.

    Doing some research:
    I believe in theory someone can hook all the calls (office 2010 made to the hardware) in ring 0 and then spoof all the ID's, then using one computer already activated files (tokens.dat , registry.hiv ) someone can activate office on any PC.